Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to have the opportunity to focus on the implementation of the early years and child care quality agenda because it is at the heart of the discussion we are having today. A number of points that are relevant to this section of the committee's deliberations already have been made. I refer in particular to the points on the early years and the neglect of this sector. This may seem a strange comment to make given the obvious investment in child care facilities over the years. Moreover, as I stated previously, there is annual expenditure of €260 million in direct support to the sector. In the past, however, the focus was very much on building up the bricks and mortar of the child care facilities. While I have reopened the child care capital programme and have given almost €8 million in 2012 and 2013, my focus, which is the necessary focus at present, is on supporting those who make up the staff of these facilities and improving quality standards. One must understand how this has contributed to this discussion and to the challenges now being faced. Reference already has been made to the pay levels, the status of early years staff and the challenges in that area. I need not repeat them, as they were highlighted in the previous two discussions. However, this is a sector with 5,000 services and more than 22,000 staff. Change in such a large and previously under-supported sector will not happen overnight and it is important to understand that and to set ambitious but realistic objectives for that sector.

I acknowledge, as have a number of members already, that the majority of services already operate to high standards. However, parents and the sector must be assured that all services will be supported and regulated to ensure high standards across the board. I am sure that most parents, when they enrol their child in a service, assume automatically that their expectations of standards and a high quality will be met. Consequently, they are extremely shocked when they hear of or receive any evidence to the contrary. This is the reason the "Prime Time" programme was so shocking for many parents. I reiterate to parents that it is clear they should know what is going on in a centre, should have access to information and the inspection reports and certainly should ask questions. However, the responsibility does not rest solely with parents but is also on the Government to ensure the sector is regulated. I wish to make some points in this regard because, undoubtedly, there remain some pockets of poor practice. Moreover, I have no doubt that some services, including community crèches, struggle to meet higher standards but there is no other choice. Quality is a must for the sector.

I now wish to focus on the actions taken and on which the Department has been working to drive the implementation of an early years child care quality agenda. The Department has taken prompt action that will have a significant impact on the sector and in respect of the quality of care. For example, the first measure taken was to organise, working with the Health Service Executive, HSE, at the time and Pobal, that inspection reports would be placed online and would be made publically available. A huge amount of work was involved and I pay tribute to the small staff that worked on that, which has ensured that more than 2,600 reports are available online. It has been a time-consuming activity for the inspectorate that has carried out this work but such transparency is of enormous value. I should add that in addition to historic reports, more recent reports also are being published.

As part of the arrangements for establishing the new Child and Family Agency, I had been working for some time with the children and family services of the HSE to standardise and improve the resources and work practices of the early years inspectorate. For the first time, this service is now nationally managed and working to common standards, which is a huge improvement on the previous inconsistent and perhaps locally-managed arrangements. Moreover, child care providers have commented to me on the improvements they already have seen in terms of a national approach. A core problem for the service was that there were vacancies for inspectors in some parts of the country, leading to the extraordinary position, when one reflects on it, that in some areas there were no inspections. Eight posts are currently being filled to address this problem and recruitment is well under way. Once the recruitment process has been finalised, those eight people will be in position. Moreover, a panel will be formed from which to draw further inspectors and the Government has allocated the funds for those posts. As I have stated, an additional €500,000 in funding has been allocated to assist the new Child and Family Agency to further strengthen the inspectorate. This is the first basic requirement, which I believe now is being met.

The second initiative was my prompt introduction of legislation, with the support of all Deputies, to amend Part VII of the Child Care Act 1991, which governs the regulation of early years services. I took considerable legal advice on this issue to ascertain how far I could go in respect of the new legislative provisions brought in as part of the Child and Family Agency Act 2013. That legislation passed through the Houses before Christmas and by bringing in this legislation, a new registration system for early years services was introduced. In consequence, new services must now register before they can commence operation. It is quite extraordinary that heretofore one was not obliged to register that one was setting up a child care facility. Importantly, the legislative changes give inspectors new powers, which can be used before the stage of prosecution. Yesterday, I met environmental health officers who told me how important this is. While it had applied to other areas in which they carried out their work, it did not apply in respect of child care previously. This means that a range of pre-prosecution actions has been introduced, which empowers them to a far greater extent than previously. For example, they can impose improvement orders on a service, which, if not complied with, can result in de-registration of the service. I will compare the position before and after the enactment of this legislation.

Following the introduction of the new regulations, inspectors, having identified a concern, will now attach a condition to the service in the national register. The inspector will then check that the condition has been complied with. If concerns continue, the service can be de-registered and will no longer be able to operate. The threat of de-registration is likely to be a far more effective catalyst for change because we want to see improvements, not closures. We want to see services making improvements and being able to continue. The difference is that the inspectorate, post the legislation, will be in a much stronger position that they were when they identified issues within services a year ago.

In addition, under the Child and Family Act - the new legislation - the fine that can be imposed on a service, on foot of a successful prosecution in the District Court, has been increased to the maximum fine possible. All of those changes in the legislation make the situation different from what it was previously and ensure that the services are more effective and are operating to the standards and quality we all want to see.

A further provision of the new legislation is based on the international evidence that shows that the introduction of higher qualifications increases the quality of the experience and outcomes for children. For this reason, the legislation also allows for the imposition of new qualification requirements for staff working in early years. As I have indicated, it is my intention to introduce a requirement for all staff working with children in these services to have a full FETAC level 5 award in early childhood care and education, with effect from September 2014 in the case of new services and from September 2015 in the case of existing services. I will also be increasing the existing minimum requirement under the free preschool year programme for preschool leaders to hold a full FETAC Level 5 award in early childhood care and education to Level 6. As I said in reply to questions, I will be supporting staff by subsidising the training because we have a new training fund. In terms of what is new from last year, we have a new training fund and a new mentoring scheme under way. I hope I will be in a position by mid-March to seek expressions of interest in providing this training from training providers nationally.

To provide for these and other changes I will be introducing new regulations, accompanied by national quality standards, and I will launch these standards in May. The standards are ready but I have decided to have the launch when the new regulations are written because it makes more sense to do the two together. This will provide the basis against which the services will be inspected and reported on. The intention is to support services to work towards higher standards of quality while providing clearer criteria against which to measure and report on their existing levels of compliance.

The committee will be aware - I spoke about this here previously - that in 2012 a number of inspections were carried out jointly by the Health Service Executive, HSE, and the Department of Education and Skills inspectorate as a pilot project with a view to feeding into the longer term improvement of the regulations. While the project went well overall, it identified particular weaknesses regarding a range of education issues such as understanding and implementation of the curriculum. I therefore asked my colleague, the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, to consider how the resources of his Department might support more education-focused inspections, initially in the preschool year. By education I mean taking account of broader developmental needs.

I will also be introducing later this year a new national quality support service for early year services; that is the mentoring scheme about which I have spoken already. We have had many consultations on that with the sector. The sector has had a national meeting to discuss how it would like to see that develop and has given a paper to my Department, which will be part and parcel of the roll-out of the scheme.

The new service will have access to a new practice manual for early-years services, which will bring the key principles of Síolta and Aistear together in a more user-friendly way. That is being developed by the National Council for Curriculum Assessment. This new service will not be a stand-alone service but will build on and be linked to a range of existing quality supports funded by my Department. Obviously, that includes the supports provided by the city and county child care committees, the voluntary child care organisations and Pobal.

I believe these reforms represent a strong and comprehensive response from my Department and this Government to addressing quality standards in early years services, an issue that was not adequately tackled until now. We have made strides, but we have a long way to go. No one should expect that the turnaround will be immediate but we are taking the initiatives that will lead to increased quality and standards, and it will be continuous.

I will continue to treat this matter as a major priority and I welcome ongoing discussion on how we can move forward, supporting our services for the benefit of children and families.